GEOMETRY AND STATE OF STRESS OF THE SLAB BENEATH THE NORTH CENTRAL ANDES

The central Andean plateau of southern Peru and Bolivia is one of the largest topographic features on Earth. It has strongly influenced the local and regional climate since the early Miocene by affecting the regional dynamics that control circulation and precipitation. The surface and subsurface processes responsible for the plateau formation and evolution are still unclear. There are two end member models proposed for this uplift: (1) Slow and steady rise since the late Eocene (~40 Ma) with maximum upper crustal shortening between 30 and 10 Ma or (2) rapid surface uplift of ~2.5 km in the late Miocene between 10.3 and 6.7 Ma. The rapid uplift theory argues for the wholesale removal of a thick portion of the lower eclogitic crust and upper mantle lithosphere. A slow and steady uplift of the Andes would suggest a continuous removal of the lower lithosphere or piecemeal delamination, proportional to the rate of shortening. We present earthquake locations and focal mechanisms using data from two ongoing temporary arrays: the network of 50 broadband seismic stations that was part of the NSF-Continental Dynamics-funded project “CAUGHT” (Central Andean Uplift and the Geodynamics of High Topography) and the 40 station NSF- Geophysics funded “PULSE” array (PerU Lithosphere and Slab Experiment). Our new earthquake locations provide an improved insight about the geometry of subducting Nazca slab and also put an upper bound on the thickness of overriding lithosphere. Obvious clustering of intermediate depth earthquakes suggests strong and localized release of tectonic stress in the slab at ~15.5^oS. The seismic section drawn from the precisely located slab events provide a better idea about the lateral variations of the slab geometry and the geometry of asthenoshperic corner flow to help understand its geodynamic effect on the lithospheric delamination or ablative subduction process. . Focal mechanisms of the slab events are helpful in understanding the stress state of the slab. Data from local slab events will eventually be incorporated into a local tomographic body wave inversion to better constrain the velocity structure of the mantle lithosphere and asthenosphere below the Altiplano. This in turn will provide the valuable information on the process involved in plateau development.